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Inspired by the 100th anniversary of “Maine Postcard Day”, Penobscot Marine Museum presents Wish You Were Here: Communicating Maine, a hundred years of images which have been used to communicate the unique qualities of Maine to the outside world. With photographic postcards, photography, and contemporary art, this exhibit explores the changes which have taken place in the images which have been used to communicate “Maine”.

Community Project: Celebrating the 100th Anniversary of Maine Post Card Day with Maine Libraries

Postcards were the Facebook and Twitter of their age. An estimated 200 to 300 billion postcards were produced and mailed world-wide from the 1890’s to the 1920’s and one of Penobscot Marine Museum’s major photography collections was produced by Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Company, an early Maine postcard company. In 1916 Maine Governor Oakley C. Curtis proclaimed April 19th “Post Card Day” and issued a proclamation asking all Maine citizens to send a postcard of Maine to friends and family outside the state with the message “Come to Maine.” A petition has been sent to Governor Le Page’s office requesting that April 19, 2016 be proclaimed “Postcard Day” in celebration of the 100th anniversary of Maine’s Post Card Day. Penobscot Marine Museum is collaborating with the Maine State Library system to distribute postcards with historic images of Maine from the museum’s photography collection to libraries across the state for patrons to mail during Library Week, April 10th through 16th.

Exhibit: Historic Maine, a Postcard View

This exhibit presents a history of the postcard, and takes a closer look at postcards produced by three Maine photographic postcard companies. The postcard craze in America, roughly 1905 to 1915, prompted the founding of many postcard companies across the country and in Maine. The vast majority of these American companies had their postcards mass-produced in Europe, but Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Company in Belfast, made “real photo” postcards with crisper images using a labor-intensive darkroom process.

Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Company photographers travelled across New England in Model Ts shooting scenes of small towns and rural life often overlooked by larger postcard companies. Postcards produced by Evie Barbour, who photographed the Blue Hill area with a box camera, and the Cunningham Brothers who photographed the area around Washington, Maine combine with images from the Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Company to create a highly personal and intimate portrait of Maine.

The exhibit includes oral histories of Mainers talking about the treasured places seen in these postcards, a trailer for a documentary on Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Company by Maine filmmaker Sumner McKane, a Model T outfitted with contemporaneous photography equipment, and the museums’ gigantic walk-in camera obscura which demonstrates the inside workings of a nineteenth-century camera.

Exhibit: Acadia National Park, a Postcard View

Acadia National Park was founded 100 years ago to preserve its extraordinary sense of place. It has long been the most famous and most visited place in Maine and has been the subject of tens of thousands of postcards. Penobscot Marine Museum joins the Acadia Centennial celebration with an exhibit of fifty years of Acadia National Park in postcards. The images are all from the Belfast-based Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company, the largest manufacturer of “real-photo postcards” in the United States. The exhibit shows how popular taste changes over time even as the actual landscape does not.

Exhibit: Maine: A Continuum of Place

“For all of us have our loved places; all of us have laid claim to part of the earth;
and all of us, whether we know it or not, are in some measure the products of our sense of place.”
—Alan Gussow, A Sense of Place: The Artist and the American Land, 1971

Maine’s landscape has inspired a remarkable sense of place over the past 150 years. Artists such as Frederic Church, Winslow Homer, Marguerite Zorach, Eric Hopkins, and Andrew Wyeth have responded to its special qualities, including its coastline and islands. That vibrant tradition continues today. To highlight how artists’ sense of place has changed over time yet represents a continuum, guest curator Carl Little, author of Paintings of Maine and Art of the Maine Islands, chose photographs and postcards of coastal Maine from the Penobscot Marine Museum’s collection and paired them with images of those places by contemporary artists. The historic photographs and the contemporary artworks will be displayed side by side.

Community Project: Photoplay! Postcards by M.J. Bronstein

Artist M.J. Bronstein has created postcards using historic images from Penobscot Marine Museum’s photography collection. These postcards are designed for the museum visitor to be able to draw on them, adding to the historic photo. Each postcard becomes a unique creation for museum visitors to send to their friends.

Behind the Scene: Why Postcards?

Penobscot Marine Museum’s photography collection was started with a group of Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Company postcard glass-plate negatives which were rescued from a flood and brought to Penobscot Marine Museum for preservation. Penobscot Marine Museum now has 50,000 of the company’s negatives, the largest Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Company collection under one roof, as well as several hundred additional postcard negatives, and around 4,000 postcards.

Collecting postcards, deltiology, is the third largest “collectible” hobby in the world. Sending postcards is enjoying resurgence. In 2005 a man in Portugal founded an organization called Postcrossing which allows people to exchange postcards worldwide. This website, www.postcrossing.com, now has over 570,000 participating members across 215 countries and in ten years, over 31 million postcards have been sent around the world.

Postcards are studied by sociologists and art historians. The Smithsonian Institution currently has an online postcards exhibit “Greetings From the Smithsonian”. In 2009 the Metropolitan Museum of Art exhibited a collection of postcards in “Walker Evans and the Picture Postcard,” and the Boston Museum of Fine Arts followed suit with “The Postcard Age: Selections From the Leonard A. Lauder Collection” in 2012.

On Friday, December 4th, Penobscot Marine Museum will host five Maine authors and an illustrator, as part of the Town of Searsport’s annual Christmas Tree Lighting. Maine authors Ardeana Hamlin, Douglas Coffin, Mac Smith, Mark Scott Ricketts, Mark Warner, and illustrator Russ Cox will be on hand to discuss their books, which will be available in the Museum Store. On display in the Store will be the red velvet dress designed by Edith Head for the 1954 movie White Christmas, and Victorian and nautical-themed Christmas Gingerbread scenes. Refreshments will be served. At the same time Penobscot Marine Museum Sea Captain’s house will be open to the public, with each room decorated for a Victorian Christmas. The Museum Store is on the Crescent at 2 Church Street, the Sea Captain’s house is across the street. The Maine authors will be in the Museum Store from 4:00 pm to 6:00 pm. Searsport’s Christmas Tree will be lit on the Crescent at 5:30 pm with refreshments and carol singing. Admission is free for all events.

Abbott’s Reach by Ardeana Hamlin

Ardeana Hamlin’s life is steeped in Maine history. She grew up in Bingham, Maine with family tales of logging in the Maine woods. Hamlin worked for 14 years at the Bangor Daily News, and now lives in Hampden. Abbott’s Reach, her historical novel set in 19th century Maine, tells the tale of a young woman setting sail on her honeymoon voyage with her sea captain husband. The Havener Sisters, also set in the 19th century, chronicles the adventures of three Maine women who by necessity reinvent their lives.

Douglas Coffin lives in Stockton Springs and hand-carves letters and decorative motifs in stone for architects and individuals. He wrote and illustrated the delightful children’s book about Santa in Maine, One Maine Christmas Eve.

Mac Smith, also a resident of Stockton Springs, is a Navy veteran of the first Gulf War and former news reporter for The Bar Harbor Times. Mainers on the Titanic tells the fascinating personal histories of passengers on that ill-fated ship who had ties to Maine.

Mark Scott Ricketts is a Maine-based Arkansas-born illustrator who has authored several Iron Man comics. A Flatlander’s Guide to Maine is a charming and funny, finely-illustrated, educational guidebook. The children’s book Adventures in Vacationland is the story of a young boy who takes his family on a wild adventure through the wilds of Maine to rescue his favorite Aunt.

Vinalhaven native Mark Warner grew up hearing stories about the wreck of the ship Royal Tar. His book The Tragedy of the Royal Tar: Maine’s 1836 Circus Steamboat Disaster explores the events leading up to the famous ship wreck, beginning with the construction of Royal Tar, the tracing the circus’s tour of the Maritimes, the cause of the fire, and details of the rescue operation.

Russ Cox illustrated award-winning children’s book author Lynn Plourde’s very funny Merry Moosey Christmas, a story of Rudolf the famous red-nosed reindeer.

On Friday, December 4th at 5:30 pm the Town of Searsport will light its Christmas tree on the Crescent, inaugurating the holiday season with a weekend of celebrations. On Friday from 4:00 to 6:00 pm the Penobscot Marine Museum Sea Captain’s house will be open to the public, with each room decorated for a Victorian Christmas. The Museum Store will host six Maine authors including Hampden novelist Ardeana Hamlin and children’s book author and illustrator Douglas Coffin. Also in the Museum Store the red velvet dress designed by Edith Head for the 1954 movie White Christmas, and Victorian and nautical-themed Christmas Gingerbread scenes will be on display. Refreshments will be served. Admission is free.

White Christmas, red dress on display at Penobscot Marine Museum

On Saturday, December 5, from 10:oo am to 4;00 pm the Museum’s Sea Captain’s House, part of the Searsport Historic Society House Tour, will host live music performances from 10 am to noon by Ralph Stanley and his fiddle group, and from 2 pm to 3 pm by an ensemble from the Pen Bay Singers. At 1:00 pm and at 3:00 pm, Katie Hessler, Librarian Carver Library will read 19th century Christmas favorites. The First Congregational Church will be open for tours of this historic building with spectacular stained glass windows and refreshments will be served. Admission is free.

The Searsport Historical Society House Tour is Saturday, December 5, from 10:oo am to 4;00 pm. The tour includes eight 19th century Searsport homes, beautifully decorated for Christmas. Refreshments will be served at Searsport Historical Society’s Coleman House. Tickets are $10, and are for sale now at Searsport Antique Mall and on the day of the tour at Searsport Historical Society’s Coleman House.

The holiday season will be celebrated with Victorian Christmas at Penobscot Marine Museum this year on Friday, December 4th and Saturday, December 5th. The ship captain’s house will be open to the public with each room decorated for a Victorian Christmas by community groups and businesses, including the Congregational Church Women’s Fellowship Group, Searsport Historical Society, Searsport Beautification Committee, Blue Jacket Shipcrafters, Bangor Savings Bank and Searsport Antique Mall. There will be refreshments, music performed by boatbuilder Ralph Stanley and his fiddle group, and volunteers from Searsport’s Carver Library will be reading from 19th Christmas favorites.

On Friday night the Museum Store will host a “Meet the Maine Authors” party in celebration of the annual Town of Searsport Tree Lighting party on Crescent. The museum’s annual gingerbread competition “Maritime Christmas Gingerbread By the Sea” will be on display and refreshments will be served.

• Historical tours of this 19th century church with gorgeous stained glass windows
• Refreshments served in Fellowship Hall

7 pm – Variety Show at Union Hall at Searsport Town Office

• Holiday Season Variety Show to benefit the stained glass window restoration fund for First Congregational Church. Something for everyone of all ages – Songs, Stories, Music and a whole lot of fun! Adults $8, Kids 12 and under $4. Refreshments for sale.

A clip from the oldest film shot in Maine will be shown during Wish You Were Here: Communicating Maine’s Unique Sense of Place, Penobscot Marine Museum’s 2015 History Conference. The Conference this year brings together Northeast Historic Film, Maine Folklife Center, and historians and writers Jay Davis, David Andrews, William Bunting and Kevin Johnson to discuss Maine’s unusual sense of place and how it has been communicated, preserved or changed over the last one hundred years.

The oldest known film taken in Maine was shot in 1901, and a clip of this historic film will be shown by Northeast Historic Film’s new Executive Director Brook Minner in her talk onpreserving Maine’s moving image history. Maine Folklife Center’s Katrina Wynn will present audio clips of stories told by Mainers on topics ranging from logging to Wabanaki culture, and discuss how preserving Maine’s oral histories adds to its sense of place.

The vibrant photographic portrait of Maine created by Peggy McKenna (1947 – 2014) in her work for Down East, Waldo Independent, and Republican Journal will be discussed by former newspaper editor Jay Davis. For more information on the History Conference or to purchase tickets, go to www.enobscotmarinemuseum.org or call 548-2529. Wish You Were Here: Communicating Maine’s Unique Sense of Place will be held at University of Maine’s Hutchinson Center in Belfast, Maine on Saturday, October 24, 8:00 am to 2:30 pm.

SCHEDULE

Showing short clips, including the oldest known film shot in Maine (1901) and the 1919 launching of a four-masted schooner built in Harrington, Maine, Ms. Minner will illustrate the ways in which preserving Maine’s moving image history preserves and strengthens Maine’s sense of place.

9:45 to 10:15 amMemories Create a Sense of Place: The Maine Folklife Center’s Role

Katrina Wynn is Archives Manager at Maine Folklife Center at University of Maine.

Using examples from its collection, Katrina Wynn will talk about the Maine Folklife Center and how it helps preserve and define Maine’s cultural history and sense of place. With a vast collection of oral histories and documents, the Maine Folklife Center preserves a treasure trove of local and regional cultural history on topics ranging from logging to Wabanaki culture.

10:30 to 11:00 amPost Cards and Town History: Telling the Story of South Bristol with Post Cards

Dave Andrews has been the historian of the South Bristol Historical Society since its creation in 1996.

Postcards can be a great tool for discovering otherwise forgotten history. Dave Andrews will share his extensive experience in creating, managing and using his own post card collection to research South Bristol history. His postcard collection has figured prominently in many of the activities of mid-coast Maine history groups.

11:15 to 11:45 amGlass Plate Maine: Early 20th Century Images from the Eastern Illustrating and Publishing Company

William H. Bunting is the author of A Day’s Work: A Sampler of Historic Maine Photographs 1860-1920 Part I & II. Kevin Johnson is the Penobscot Marine Museum Photo Archivist.

Kevin Johnson and Bill Bunting will show photos from Eastern Illustrating & Publishing Company, the largest manufacturer of real-photo postcards in the United States, and discuss what these photos reveal about Mainers’ own sense of place and identity in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Earle Shettleworth Jr., William H. Bunting and Kevin Johnson are working on a book celebrating the extraordinary legacy and photographs of the company.

12:00 am to 12:45 pm – LUNCH

1:00 to 1:30 pmMaking a Storymap to Define “Place”

Margaret Chernosky, of Maine Geographic Alliance, brought a variety of GIS software to the teaching of geography at Bangor High School.

Chernosky demonstrates the construction of a storymap which defines Maine’s sense of place by using the iconic images, ranging from the County to the coast, from vintage postcards.

1:45 to 2:15 pmMaine in Her Heart: the Photography of Margaret “Peggy ” McKenna from 1971 to 2013

Jay Davis is the author of History of Belfast in the 20th Century, and has been the editor of the Republican Journal, Waldo Independent, and Maine Times.

Peggy McKenna (1947 – 2014) was a professional photographer whose remarkable photos captured the essence of and endeared her to the hearts of her subjects. Over the years she photographed thousands of people for Down East, Waldo Independent, and Republican Journal, creating an astounding and vibrant photographic portrait of the place that is Midcoast Maine.

Floating Palaces: America’s Queens of the Sea by William Haviland and Barbara (Greenlaw) Britton

The men of Deer Isle have been famous for their maritime skills for well over a hundred years. In 1895 and 1899 the America’s Cup was won by all-Deer Isle crews, the first and last time in history a single town supplied an entire crew for the race. At Penobscot Marine Museum onThursday, October 8 at 7:00 pm, anthropologist William Haviland will discuss why the men of Deer Isle developed such an excellent reputation and were sought after as crewmen especially for the big steam yachts of the early 20th century. Haviland’s book on the subject, Floating Palaces: America’s Queens of the Sea which he wrote with Deer Isle native Barbara (Greenlaw) Britton, was published this year.Admission is free.

William Haviland is Professor Emeritus of Anthropology at the University of Vermont. Growing up he spent summers on Deer Isle and is now a full-time resident. He is on the boards of the Deer Isle-Stonington Historical Society and the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor.

Floating Palaces: America’s Queens of the Sea is part of Penobscot Marine Museum’s Boat Talk Series. The talk will take place on Thursday, October 8, 7:00 pm, at Douglas and Margaret Carver Memorial Art Gallery, 11 Church Street, Searsport, Maine. Admission is free.

Admission will be free at Penobscot Marine Museum for all visitors during Searsport’s annual Fling Into Fall celebration on Friday, October 2nd and Saturday, October 3rd. In addition, the Museum Store will offer 20% off all purchases on Saturday, October 3rd. Many Searsport businesses are offering sales for the festival weekend. Grasshopper Shop is having a 20% storewide sale on Friday and Saturday, WORKS is having a storewide sale on books, and Searsport Shores Campground is offering free camping to Searsport residents. For more information on call Kathy at 207-548-2529 ext. 216.

Touch-A-Truck and chain-saw sculpting are two of the new activities at Searsport’s annual Fling Into Fall festival. Rockin Ron and the New Society Band will be playing rock and doo-wop in the evening. Fling Into Fall begins at noon on Friday, October 2nd with Jack O’ Lantern and Scarecrow set-up on the Crescent, and ends at 6:00 pm on Saturday, October 3rd with a Public Italian Supper at the Congregational Church. For a full schedule or more information check the Fling Into Fall Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/flingintofall?fref=ts or call Kari at Searsport Rec. Dept. 207-548-2769.

Firetrucks, a marine patrol boat, race car, Central Maine Power truck and more will all be available for kids and adults to touch and climb into at Searsport’s annual Fling Into Fall celebration on Friday, October 2nd and Saturday, October 3rd. Also new to the festival is Pasco Grove, who will be making chain-saw sculpture, and a cash prize award for the best float in the Fling Into Fall Parade.

Restored Tonka Truck, Fling Into Fall 2014

Children who renovate Tonka trucks will be competing again this year in the very popular Tonka Truck Restoration Challenge. Jack O’ Lanterns and Scarecrows will be displayed on the Crescent, Searsport Public Safety professionals again challenge Stockton Springs, Prospect and Frankfort to a Chili Cook-Off. There will be a Big Parade, Craft Show, Antique Car Show, Apple Pie Baking Contest, and Rockin Robin and the New Society band will be playing doo-wop and rock.

Antique Auto, Fling Into Fall 2014

Grasshopper Shop, WORKS, Searsport Shores Campground and Penobscot Marine Museum Store will be offering discounts to all customers on Friday, October 2nd and Saturday, October 3rd. Penobscot Marine Museum admission will be free for everyone on Friday, October 2nd and Saturday, October 3rd.

Fling Into Fall begins at noon on Friday, October 2nd with Jack O’ Lantern and Scarecrow set-up on the Crescent, and ends at 6:00 pm on Saturday, October 3rd with a Public Italian Supper at the Congregational Church. For a full schedule or more information check the Fling Into Fall Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/flingintofall?fref=ts or call Kari at Searsport Rec. Dept. 207-548-2769.

Many legends surround the Finish-American photographer Kosti Ruohomaa, and it is said his life was “haunted”. Ruohomaa was an award-winning photo journalist who shot iconic portraits of working Americans which appeared in LIFE, National Geographic, and other publications from 1940 to 1960, but Maine was always his favorite subject. Deanna S. Bonner-Ganter, Curator of Photography at the Maine State Museum, has studied Kosti Ruohomaa for twenty years and her biography of Ruohomaa will soon be published by Down East Books. On Thursday, September 24 at 7:00 pm she will give an illustrated talk Close to the Land & Close to the Sea: The Photography of Kosti Ruohomaa at Penobscot Marine Museum’s Douglas and Margaret Carver Memorial Art Gallery, 11 Church Street, Searsport, Maine. Tickets are $8, or $5 for Museum members and Searsport residents.

Close to the Land & Close to the Sea: The Photography of Kosti Ruohomaa is part of Exploring the Magic of Photography: Painting with Light, Penobscot Marine Museum’s first major exhibition of historic photography. It includes four exhibits, a walk-in camera, a wall of selfies taken by museum visitors, and an historic darkroom. The four exhibits, Through Her Lens: Women Photographers of Mid-Coast Maine, 1890-1920; Twenty Best; Evolution of the Photographic Snapshot: 1888-2015; and The Carters and the Lukes – Selections from the Red Boutilier Collection are filled with inter-active opportunities for visitors including life-sized photographic cut-outs with which visitors may photograph themselves, an online exhibit of visitor photographs and comments, and QR codes and tablets providing access to audio clips of interviews, biographies, and commentary by historians, curators and professional photographers.